Nottingham's enduring appeal as a student town

 

Nottingham has many attractions to explain its enduring appeal as a student town. The two universities, Univeristy of Nottingham (UoN) and Nottingham Trent University (NTU) , which together educate about 56,000 students, regularly appear at the top of the annual lists of the most popular universities in the UK.

 

There are also four further education colleges, including New College Nottingham and South Nottingham College, each boasting more than 20,000 students.

 

The small city of 300,000 is big enough to support a thriving community of shops, bars and cafes, yet small enough to walk everywhere. It has eight theatres, five cinemas, including the art-house Broadway cinema and the much-loved Savoy, with its ‘love seats’ for two, nightclubs aplenty and music venues including the legendary Rock City plus the 10,000-capacity Capital FM Arena.

 

Here you'll find fantastic sporting events: the cricket ground at Trent Bridge hosts Tests, one-day internationals and county cricket matches. It is set to welcome West Indies Tests and South African one-day international matches in 2012, as well as action in the 2019 Cricket World Cup.

 

 

You may be surprised to learn that ice hockey is one of the city’s most popular sports. The National Ice Centre, home of ice sports in the UK, is here and the Nottingham Panthers (the oldest ice hockey club in the country) train in the arena. They play in the 10-team top-flight Elite League and are the Challenge Cup and Playoff champions, collecting two of the three major ice-hockey trophies up for grabs in 2011.

 

Varsity matches between the University and Nottingham Trent play here to sell-out crowds of 6,500.

 

 

Nottingham’s most famous son is undeniably Robin Hood, who 'stole from the rich and gave to the poor.'  Today the city makes the most of its links with this world-famous (but mythical) outlaw, with numerous attractions and roads bearing his name.

 

Twenty miles north of Nottingham, Sherwood Forest (where Robin Hood and his followers hid from the authorities) is now a 450-acre nature reserve and attracts more than 400,000 visitors a year. Legend has it that the 800-year-old oak tree in the forest was once used as a hideout by Robin Hood.

 

 

In almost the exact geographical centre of the UK, Nottingham is never very far away from anywhere else in the country. By train, it’s only 99 minutes to London or just under two hours to Manchester. Driving, you can be in the Lake District or on the beaches of Norfolk in less than three hours.

 

Just 40 minutes away is the Peak District, a National Park with stunning landscapes and beautiful market towns and villages. It’s also the location of spectacular country houses, like Chatsworth, where parts of the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice and 2008’s The Duchess were filmed.

 

And take a look at our own interactive map of the UK to explore the area.

You can find out more about different regions in the UK on Visit Britain.